Data from: Soil fertility shapes belowground food webs across a regional climate gradient

Changes in soil fertility during pedogenesis affect the quantity and
quality of resources entering the belowground subsystem. Climate governs
pedogenesis, yet how climate modulates responses of soil food webs to soil
ageing remains unexplored because of the paucity of appropriate model
systems. We characterised soil food webs along each of four retrogressive
soil chronosequences situated across a strong regional climate gradient to
show that belowground communities are predominantly shaped by changes in
fertility rather than climate. Basal consumers showed hump-shaped
responses to soil ageing, which were propagated to higher-order consumers.
There was a shift in dominance from bacterial to fungal energy channels
with increasing soil age, while the root energy channel was most important
in intermediate-aged soils. Our study highlights the overarching
importance of soil fertility in regulating soil food webs, and indicates
that belowground food webs will respond more strongly to shifts in soil
resources than climate change.